14. The newspaper style (the headlines)

The headline (the title given to a news item or an article) is a dependent form of newspaper writing. It is in fact a part of a larger whole. The specific functional and linguistic traits of the headline provide suf­ficient ground for isolating and analysing it as a specific "genre" of journalism. The main function of the headline is to inform the reader briefly what the text that follows is about. But apart from this, headlines often contain elements of appraisal, i.e. they show the reporter's or the paper's attitude to the facts reported or commented on, thus also per­forming the function of instructing the reader. English headlines are short and catching, they "compact the gist of news stories into a few eye-snaring words. A skilfully turned out headline tells a story, or enough of it, to arouse or satisfy the reader's curiosity." l In some English and American newspapers sensational headlines are quite common. The practices of headline writing are different with different newspa­pers. In many papers there is, as a rule, but one headline to a news item, whereas such papers as The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times often carry a news item or an article with two or three headlines, and sometimes as many as four. The functions and the peculiar nature of English headlines predeter­mine the choice of the language means used. The vocabulary groups considered in the analysis of brief news items are commonly found in headlines. But headlines also abound in emotionally coloured words and phrases. The headline in British and American newspapers is an important vehicle both of information and appraisal; editors give it special atten­tion, admitting that few read beyond the headline, or at best the lead. To lure the reader into going through the whole of the item or at least a greater part of it, takes a lot of skill and ingenuity on thepart of the headline writer.

15.The newspaper style (advertisements and announcements)

The principal function of a d v e r t i s em en ts and announcements, like that of brief news, is to inform the reader. There are two basic types of advertisements and announcements in the modern English newspaper: classified and non-classified.In classified advertisements and announcements various kinds of information are arranged according to subject-matter into sections, each bearing an appropriate name. In The Times, for example, the reader never fails to find several hundred advertisements and announcements classified into groups, such as BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, DEATHS, IN MEMORIAM, BUSINESS OFFERS, PERSONAL, etc. This classified arrangement has resulted in a number of stereotyped patterns regularly employed in newspaper advertising. All announcements in the 'Birth' section are built on exactly the same elliptical pattern. This tendency to eliminate from the sentence all elements that can be done without is a pronounced one in adver­tisement and announcement writing. The elliptic sentence structure has no stylistic function; it is purely technical—to economize space, expensive in what newspaper men call the "advertising hole." Though, of course, having become a common practice, this peculiar brevity of expression is a stylistic feature of advertisements and announcements which may take a variety of forms. Here the absence of all articles and some punctuation marks makes the statement telegram-like. Sentences which are grammatically complete also tend to be short and compact.The vocabulary of classified advertisements and announcements is on the whole essentially neutral with here and there a sprinkling of emotionally coloured words or phrases used to attract the reader's attention. Naturally, it is advertisements and announcements in the PERSONAL section that are sometimes characterized by emotional colouring. As for the non-classified advertisements and announcements, the variety of language form and subject-matter is so great that hardly any essential features common to all may be pointed out. The reader's attention is attracted by every possible means: typographical, graphical and stylistic, both lexical and syntactical. Here there is no call for brev­ity, as the advertiser may buy as much space as he chooses.